Andy Larmand

Padlet is an online platform that allows educators to create and collaborate easily and efficiently. A huge part of teaching in the 21st century is being creative and keeping the attention of students with unique content. Keep reading to find out how Padlet helps educators accomplish exactly that in a way that truly benefits students.

Heather Russell is a STEAM teacher from Ecoff Elementary in the Chesterfield (VA) County Public Schools. She is working hard to bring more coding and robotics opportunities to the students in the 39 elementary schools in her district and we’re more than happy to be able to reward her hard work and excellent application!

Why do district leaders create brand-new positions for people or re-assign existing employees to vastly different roles? Well, technology can have lots to do with that and the effectiveness with which teachers can weave it into their school’s curriculum and everyday projects can do a lot for a student’s future, helping to equip them with both hard and soft skills.

Educators are always wondering about the best technology for their classrooms and there isn’t always a definite answer. What’s best for one teacher and group of students depends on learning goals, classroom environment, and previous experiences with EdTech. Watch the video to learn why our Irina Tuule believes EdTech is simply like a pencil.

The littleBits team recently released four expansion packs—two for the Code Kit and two for the STEAM Student Set. And, for this week’s Eduporium Experiment, we’re getting into the Code Kit Expansion Packs, the additional components they include, and the bonus projects students can make!

Keeping up with the latest releases from EdTech companies is important to us and we constantly work to make sure that we’re not missing anything important. At the same time, we’re researching each product ourselves to make sure that it will undoubtedly enhance instruction for all teachers and students that use it. Here are a few to check out!

One of the most exciting robots for teaching coding in elementary and middle school, the Root is now available in class packs! Educators can more easily bring Root into their classrooms thanks to the additions of classroom packs in sizes of 2, 6, 12, and 30! Root helps teachers cover key CS concepts, like touch interaction, drawing, loops, and more.

Formative assessments can be used to count as graded work or simply for teachers to gain a clearer understanding of student progress. They can be formal or informal and the best ones often lend ideas for how teachers can improve their instruction. This takes time, however, and that’s why Formative helps teachers in individualizing instruction.

We had a blast attending this year’s ISTE Conference in Philadelphia. It was a great couple of days and we truly enjoyed getting to catch up with a lot of our vendor and educator partners. The topics on everyone’s minds ranged from AI in education to creating more agency in professional learning with keynotes aimed at inspiring educators.

Though known for designing some of the most useful tools in robotics education in the Sphero SPRK and Sphero BOLT, this item from Sphero certainly has a different twist. We’re talking about the Sphero Specdrums—sets of music-making rings that kids (or adults) can place around their fingers and create music anytime and, more importantly, in any place.